


stargazing

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Future Fic, POV Phil Coulson, Post-Season 4, Spaceships, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 15:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11188416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Stargazing in space.





	stargazing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tqpannie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tqpannie/gifts).



He doesn’t hear the moment she wakes up - sharing the bunk on the freighter seemed to them like the natural option, they didn’t know or trust the ship’s crew, and after nights of forced solitude in prison Coulson was happy for the company. It’s their third night on the journey and he has been falling asleep to the sound of Daisy’s breathing on the cot next to him, so comforting after weeks of not knowing what had happened to her, or if she was even alive. He doesn’t notice her leave the room tonight, but when he wakes up alone in the middle of the night he has a good idea of where she went.

The crew of the ship is barebones, which makes the place feel even bigger and alien at night. Coulson hopes he and Daisy can keep to themselves for the duration of the flight - the captain said a week, Coulson suspects he was being optimistic. He doesn’t like walking alone at night like this; like in prison it only makes him more aware of how thin the materials that separate him from the vast, deathly space. It makes Coulson hug himself for a moment as he wanders through empty corridors filled with nothing but tech he has never seen, and beeping lights. Feeling like his skin is too thin as well, and just by being out here it might split open at any point. He can feel it with every step - for all the time he spent flying these past years, virtually living on planes, the idea of not having ground to walk on nauseates Coulson a bit right now.

But he feels immediately better when he sees Daisy’s silhouette against the dark landscape outside, cutting the darkness and the stars on the other side of the wall-length window. The incipient panic subsides instinctively. He looks at her back and shoulders, that look broad, like they could take on the way of the universe, protect Coulson even if technology fails and the ship breaks apart.

At first Coulson believes she hasn’t heard him come in.

He thinks, for a moment, of telling her she shouldn’t wander around the ship alone, then shakes his head (unseen) at his own stupidity: it’s not like she is in much danger, she could tear every piece of this ship apart with a sneeze, and the traders know it, they have seen her fight.

“It’s all so strange,” she says, without turning, sensing Coulson’s silent approach.

Their bunk doesn’t have portholes or a viewing area. Maybe Daisy feels claustrophobic about being in a spaceship all this time and that’s why she comes here at night.

Coulson follows her gaze outward. A sky they never studied at school, stars with names they don’t know, in tongues they have never heard. They seem like a film set to him,not real. So many, so bright, they look like someone put them up there, overdoing it.

“Strange,” he agrees, walking up to her, until they are side by side on the observation deck. “You never get used to this…”

Daisy turns to him.

“You’ve been on an alien planet before,” she points out.

“It wasn’t the same,” Coulson replies. “I was just there, I fell right on the surface. I’ve never been… in space.”

“I guess.”

She hasn’t told him much about what she’s been through all this time, since they separated her from the team a few days after they were locked up. Coulson’s not about to ask. He saw the captain’s disbelieving expression when Daisy explained where she had come from, where she had escaped from. Coulson wonders what exactly this endless-night sky means to Daisy, what she has seen there.

“You think we’ll ever get back?” Daisy asks, looking somewhere off into the distance, imagining that’s the direction Earth must be, but not really knowing it.

It’s an uncharacteristic moment of self-doubt for Daisy. She is normally the one telling people everything will be okay, swallowing up her own fears to comfort others. Coulson is only too happy to be the one putting his own fears aside for her sake right now.

“We will,” he assures her. “We’ll get back our team, and we’ll find a way back home.”

He hopes Daisy doesn’t ask about the specifics of that, because he has no idea. He just knows. Right here, right now. Maybe it will pass, that feeling.

“You seem very chill,” she says, like an accusation but in a light, teasing tone.

Coulson thinks about how alone and desperate he had felt only four days ago, how pointless the whole thing had seemed. That changed once he saw her again.

“I’m just happy I managed to find you,” he tells her. 

Daisy smiles. “ _I_ found you is more like it.”

He nods.

“Yeah, more like it.”

He shakes his head. They almost passed each other by, Coulson trying to reach the Kree prison he’d been told they’d taken Daisy to, Daisy already broken free, trying to get back where the team had been held prisoners originally, before they started moving them one by one, when she got news of a human having escaped. She tracked Coulson down just as he thought he was the one going to her rescue. It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s useless, he’s just happy to be here right now with her.

“What a weird thing to say,” Daisy points at when he repeats the sentiment. “We’re stuck in tin can flying through space, our team sent god knows where, we barely have any idea where to start looking. Not to mention we don’t know how to get back to Earth when we find them.” 

Coulson doesn’t know if all the stars around him are lulling him into this false safety. He suspects it’s just Daisy’s presence. She doesn’t even need to say everything will be all right.

“I’m still happy to be here,” he says a third time.

Daisy smiles. Openly, like she hasn’t since he found her again, since she’s been jaw-clenching fingers-into-fists preoccupied and ready and fighting to get them on the right track. It’s the first time Coulson has watched her whole body relax. He hasn’t even seen her relax in her bed, since for three nights now he falls asleep first and Daisy is already up in the morning when he wakes.

“I feel the same,” she admits, looking into his eyes.

Behind her the stars are endless, and Coulson feels a moment of vertigo, the universe too big for his smallness. Daisy holds his hand, holds him in place. Her touch is light, shy, Daisy-esque. She arches a slight eyebrow, like asking for permission.

Without even speaking they both know what the moment means, no doubts. They draw towards the other, meeting exactly halfway, no one kissing the other first, pressing their lips to each other’s mouth at the same moment. 

It’s a chaste enough kiss that it feels appropriate for their desperate situation, but unchaste enough that serves as a promise of what they’ll become once they’re back on earth. Like with the whole business of getting back home, they don’t know the details, but they agree silently everything will change. When they break apart Coulson draws a breath, his lungs filling, feeling bigger than in months. He hasn’t been kissed like this, so carefully and hopefully, since he was a teenager. Daisy smiles - a little, shyly, Daisy-esque - and licks her lips.

They settle and stare out at the stars together in silence for a while. Coulson thinks they look less threatening, that their unknown names are no longer pressing down on his chest. It’s strange to be so content when they are in such danger, in such uncertainty of the future.

It reminds him of another shared moment with Daisy, years ago, looking at the night sky.

“It’s beautiful,” Daisy says, looking at the strange stars.

“Yes,” Coulson agrees, looking at her.


End file.
